I’m watching the History Channel’s Sons of Liberty. A dramatization of the events leading up to the Declaration of Independence.
One thing that’s never been clear is how the King and Parliament treated the Canadian colonies. For example did they have the same heavy taxes imposed? Did the Stamp Act and Tea Tax apply to Canada’s colonies too? Were British troops given broad powers to go into homes and businesses to conduct searches? Did the Canadian colonies have the same grievousness as the American colonies?
I’ve never heard much said about what was going on in the Canadian colonies at this time. The Invasion of Canada and Occupation of Montreal is often downplayed. I’ve never heard if the populace had any interest in separating from the Crown.
I’ve always wondered what Canada’s schools teach about this period of history.
The French Canadians were pretty happy with the Quebec Act, and knew they’d get a worse deal if they threw in with the Anglo-American in the 13 Colonies.
Funny, you’d think the King of France would make reclaiming New France a condition of his support, but he didn’t.
He still had troops and settlers all through the Mississippi Valley until after 1800 and made most of his “trouble” through the tribes. Check out the book “The Time of the French in the Heart of North America” (I believe).
The British Canadians got a much better deal than the lower colonies as has been pointed out and the French left in Canada were not in much of a position financially or politically to join in. Some Canadians did come south and join the Continental forces but more stayed loyal and either fought against the upstarts or provided a base of operations for colonists/Tories. Names to check out are Simon Girty and John Butler/Butlers Rangers. Both are Canadian “heroes” but “traitors” down here.
For the English in what are now Canadian provinces, the commercial benefits lay in trading fish, furs and timber through the British Empire. For the French in what is now the province of Quebec (by far the most populous at the time), the legal and cultural benefits, including the retention of French based civil law and a powerful Roman Catholic Church, lay with the British Empire. For the First Nations, protection against uncontrolled land acquisition and settlement lay with the British Empire.
The rebelling colonies had little to offer other than economic loss and cultural assimilation.
J.M.S. Careless has a chapter well worth reading that addresses the various reasons why joining the American Revolution was not appealing to most people in what is now Canada: http://www.canadianheritage.org/books/canada4.htm
I read an interesting theory that the person, more than any other, who kept Nova Scotia loyal was Henry Aline, who, among other things, preached neutrality in the Revolution…neither joining the rebels, or serving in the militia…that Nova Scotians had to show Christian love and peace, and that “War is a sad consequence of the Fall of man and his subsequent apostasy.”, and that this was “a most inhuman war…spreading desolation throughout the world.”
Brant was born in what’s now Ohio, Girty was born in Pennsylvania, and Butler was born in Connecticut and grew up in New York. All three of them wound up in Canada after the war, but that was just because they’d be dead if they were in what was the new United States.
Canada was still predominantly French in culture in 1776. Canada at that point was essentially still a former French colony that had been captured by Britain. It didn’t really become an English colony until the United States won its independence and a lot of Americans who were still loyal to Britain resettled in Canada.
As for the French people in Canada, they saw the Revolution as a war between two rival groups of English; the English in America were fighting the English in England. Either way, Canada was going to remain under English control. And most Canadians seemed to feel they’d do better as an British colony than as an American colony.
One group that the Americans did approach was the British colonies in the Caribbean. Diplomatic missions were sent to people in the British West Indies asking them to rise up and join the Americans in declaring independence.
The local English did feel some ideological sympathy with the American cause. They also resented being controlled by a Parliament in which they had no representation. But in the end, the islands stayed loyal to England. They felt they needed the protection of the British Army and Navy to protect them from other European powers and slave uprisings. And they also realized how vulnerable they would be to the British Army and Navy if they switched sides.
What heavy taxes ?
Americans paid the lowest taxes in the world. The amount of taxation wasn’t what got them hot and bothered, it was paying the taxes at all.
They were glad to pay double the tax rate to their own country. Viz: local gentry running the locality as local politicians. Independence was not cheap, but it made them feel good.
One of the reasons that Quebec/Canada was not interested in the rebellion was that one of the grievances listed in the Declaration was actually a benefit to French Canadians:
The background is that when Britain captured Quebec, it imposed the English system of laws, both criminal and common law, on Quebec, supplanting the French civil law. That was not popular in Quebec, because suddenly all the laws relating to land-holding and commerce, as well as wills and estates, were changed overnight, creating great confusion.
In response to that, in 1774, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act, which restored French civil law for all matters relating to property, contracts, obligations, estate successions, and so on. That was a very popular measure in Quebec.
And then suddenly, the English in the southern colonies list this benefit as an example of oppression, which should be overturned.
As well, the Quebec Act confirmed that the boundaries of Quebec extended far to the west, into the territory that is now Ontario and Michigan. That too was very popular, because the merchants of Montreal, both English and French, made their living from the fur trade to the west. Having the boundaries confirmed was a good thing. But again, that was a grievance that the colonists to the south were raising.
It doesn’t take much imagination to see that for the Quebecers, it looks like the British in London are more protective of Quebec’s interests than the colonists to the south. That one clause in the Declaration of Independence did a lot to keep Quebec aligned with Britain.
As well, remember that even before the Declaration was passed, the new United States had invaded Canada, in 1775. Ostensibly, it was to persuade the French Canadians to join the rebellion, but really, is that a good way to get people on your side? An armed invasion? The British armed forces defeated the invasion, along with the French-Canadian militias and First Nations allies. That invasion was a good way to build solidarity among the various populations of Canada, united against the armed invaders from the south.
Finally, with regard to First Nations, one of the grievances listed in the Declaration was:
That is a reference to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which imposed strict conditions on buying land from Indians. It could only be done by the Crown, after treaty with an Indian band. Individuals could not buy land from Indians. That effect of the Proclamation was seen by many in the colonies, including George Washington, as a restriction on the abilities of the colonies to expand westward.
However, for the First Nations involved, that part of the Royal Proclamation was a major guarantee from the British, to protect their lands from aggressive expansion. The British emphasised this in their dealings with the First Nations, and it was one of the reasons that First Nations saw the British as more protective of their rights. They may not have ever read either the Proclamation or the Declaration, but they could see that the colonists favoured general westward expansion, while the British had set in place a protection for their lands. So again, one of the policies set out in the Declaration counted against the interest of the colonists in trying to get people in the Canadian colonies to join them.
Interestingly, both of these issues, rejected by the colonists, are part of the constitutional structure of Canada today. The Royal Proclamation has constitutional status, and its principles for dealing with First Nations for the surrender of land by treaty continue to apply. And, the civil law of Quebec continues to be based on French law, as implemented by the Quebec Act of 1774.
Canada was forged as a coalition of British, French and First Nations people’s. If they were to survive they needed each other. "Us vs Them’ wasn’t going to work here, from the very start.
That’s three formidable enemies, in one, in some ways. And much harder to push back at than a single enemy would be, in many ways.
Then with respect to the Atlantic colonies, there was really only one major one: Nova Scotia.
Nova Scotia, in turn, was dominated by Halifax, which was one of the major ports for the British Navy, both before and during the rebellion. The merchants of Halifax made a lot of money off the Royal Navy, selling provisions. The economic interests of Halifax were very much in line with the British Empire as a continuing force. There was not much support for any wild breakaways.
As for the other parts of the Atlantic, they really didn’t have much in the way of population.
What is now New Brunswick was part of Nova Scotia at the time.
Prince Edward Island was and is very small.
Newfoundland didn’t even have a legislature, being primarily a fishing outpost, and was extremely isolated. The major point of settlement was St John’s, with its amazing natural harbour, sheltered from the North Atlantic, which made it, like Halifax, a major staging point for the Royal Navy. That in turn made support for the British a natural position.
They could have gone to England like Arnold and others but that’s splitting hairs.
They were from the “lower 13” but Canada provided their base of operations and safety as well as some of the men following them. Canadian “leaders” are a little hard to find in the Rev War but influence and some participation/manpower is in the record.
At least with Butler and Girty. Brant is a little harder to say or nail down because of how the Native forces fielded. Was he respected by the Canadian tribes? Because of his ties with Johnson you could almost bet on it. Did they “follow” him in the same manner that Butlers recruits followed him? Probably not.
An exhibit at the Smithsonian a few years ago claimed differently. George III won the French and Indian War by borrowing heavily and outspending the French, and passing the cost along to the colonists. He reasoned that the primary benefactors of the war should shoulder the cost of it. The land-owning colonists, unable to make what we quaintly know as a “profit”, pushed for a war and sold it with the whole “freedom from tyranny, free religion, free press” lingo, but make no mistake: the war was about money.
Just to reiterate this point again, taxes on citizens in the colonies were actually lower than those imposed on the citizens in England.
The rallying cry was not “No Taxation” or “Lower Taxation” but “No Taxation without Representation”.
The American Revolutionaries weren’t a single monolithic group. Some simply wanted to go it alone and used any excuse. Some didn’t want to pay any taxes at all, even the lowest for all British citizens. Some wouldn’t have minded the taxation had the colonies representation in Parliament.
There’s a small touch of modern historical revisionism in the OP.
Maybe this wasn’t true several decades ago, but in more modern American history classes (even the ones in Arkansas where I learned it and not especially known for its advanced cirricula), we were taught a fair amount about the period, including facts about Canada. Mostly, they weren’t interested in getting into a situation that was economically and philosophically dubious, justified by dubious and sometimes specious arguments, and against a government they (and many of the Revolutionaries) saw as being mostly legitimate. And then, when many of the loyalists went to Canada, it was even less likely to switch sides - something the US learned the hard way in 1812.
Ditto the taxation argument. It’s a popular argument today to bring up “high” taxes, but that wasn’t the ostensible argument for rebellion back then. Rather the lack of opportunity for government participation was one of the ostensible arguments, along with a desire for more local rule and other factors.
Sort of true. There were minor new taxes. The real “burden” was that British enforcement of existing taxes went up. That resulted in more taxes being paid, which was seen as onerous in some quarters after years of unpunished tax evasion.
I take it for granted that then, as now, when people said they were going to war to “spread freedom” and “oppose tyranny”, they actually have more mundane economic concerns on their minds. Confirming the boundaries of Quebec was a real kick in the pants for the colonists – they’d skirmished with the French for years over the western territories, and now the British had taken them over and they still weren’t allowed to expand westward.
To some extent of course (isn’t everything?), but the freedom part has some basis in fact. What the rebels really resented was that the British Parliament could in principle enact anything whatsoever, and the colonies would have no say in the matter and no choice but to do what they were told. The corrupt “Rotten Bureau” system then in place meant that there was little chance of American interests being given anything but lip service. After decades of near-autonomy, having the home government suddenly become heavy-handed came as a rude awakening. Especially, the colonists considered the common-law rights under English tradition sacred, and were shocked to discover that the British government held that imperial administrative rules could trump them. It didn’t help that George III was an activist king and pushed royal prerogative as far as he could.
As for taxes, consider Britain’s Cider Bill, which provoked such outcry that the government had to relent at first from imposing it- primarily because it would have cost many MPs their seats. Whereas the colonials were starkly aware that there were no political obstacles whatsoever to taxing the colonies without limit- raising the spectre that the colonies would eventually become the empire’s “milque cow”.
One might cynically hold the Revolution to be just another example of Orwell’s Middles revolting against the Highs; but to be fair the Americans had discovered to their horror that they were on the wrong end of a colonial/imperial relationship. The Enlightenment philosophies current at the time gave an ideological justification for the revolt.